We started by making the dough for apple strudel which was straight forward enough. It was a straight dough method, so, everything in the mixer at once, then we put them in a KitchenAid with a dough hook and mixed on low until blended and then mixed on a higher speed for 5-7 minutes to build elasticity. After this was done, we let it rest in the fridge for about an hour. Then, we made the filling for the apple strudel, which meant a lot of peeling, coring, and dicing apples. Jean-Luc wanted us to make a batch between two people and then one person had to volunteer to work alone, which I did, so we had three batches between the five of us. After the last rotation where I ended up on my own due to a variety of factors, I'm pretty used to working on my own, and that also means Jean-Luc can't get as frustrated with you for going slower... except I am apparently a pro at peeling apples, because I wasn't that far behind everyone else. After the apples were peeled and diced, we melted a LOT of butter in a frying pan, added the apples, and cooked them until they had softened, but weren't mushy. Then we added our sugar, vanilla, and cinnamon. Once these were mixed in, we removed the pan from the heat and added in our brandy-soaked raisins, mixed them in, and then folded in our bread crumbs. Then we placed the mixture in a bowl and let it cool in the freezer.
At some point, we took out our caramel ice cream from yesterday and compiled it into one mixture, and put it in the ice cream machine. Caramel ice cream is just as delicious as it sounds. Or maybe even more delicious than it sounds. It's hard to say. We also at some point took our Grand Marnier parfaits out of the silicone moulds, sprayed them with a white chocolate/cocoa butter mixture (USING A SPRAY GUN) and then put them back in the freezer. And we took the chocolate pate out of the tubes, which didn't go as smoothly as it did last time. Or maybe last time it didn't go smoothly either and it was just too long ago to remember. This time, we didn't do a very good job of preventing chocolate from getting on the back of the acetate strip, which caused them to stick to the tubes, which made them hard to get out without cracking them / breaking them entirely. But it meant there were a lot that we could just try... and they were yummy. Then we set these aside (in the fridge) to use for lunch.
After a bunch of things or maybe not that many, we cleaned our tables and got ready to roll out our strudel dough. Once we rolled them out to the size of our rolling pins, Jean-Luc lifted up the dough and put a table cloth under it, which made things a lot more mysterious... Then we literally stretched the dough until it was the width of the table by one a half times the length of the rolling pin. Stretching the dough was really cool. (The end result -- which we obviously didn't find out til later -- was a super flaky and delicious pastry.) We put one hand on top of the dough and then placed our other hand, palm-facing down, under the dough and pulled carefully. And continued all the way around until it was the width and length that we wanted. Once this was done, Jean-Luc showed us how to take the edges off, because the dough is thicker around the edges. He literally ripped a piece of the edge off and then rolled it around his finger as he ripped all the way along the edges of the dough, holding the rest of the dough down with his under hand, so it wouldn't rip too much off. Once this was done, we brushed the dough with butter and then placed our apple mixture in about a hand's width in from the side and the top of the dough in a log shape. Then, we used the table cloth to roll up the strudel, because since the dough is so thin, it's easier using the tablecloth than hands. Once the dough was rolled, we put it on a baking tray with parchment paper (full disclosure: Jean-Luc did mine because I was worried I'd break it while I was moving it) and then brushed it with butter again. Then we set it aside and went on break. Jean-Luc mentioned that this method was the traditional method of making apple strudel; some people just use puff pastry dough instead of stretching it out. I didn't even know "stretching the dough" was an actual thing. The things you learn...
I think it was actually when we came back from our break that we made the caramel ice cream. Then, we had to make two batches of raspberry coulis and two batches of anglaise sauce. I made one of the batches of coulis, which was easy because you basically had to combine all of the ingredients in a pot and then bring it to a boil. You are technically supposed to pass it through a chinois and then cool it down, but I may have accidentally used raspberry puree instead of frozen raspberries (whoops) so I didn't have to strain it because there were no seeds. After this, we had to melt down some dark chocolate and put them in two cornets in the oven and also caramelize some decoration syrup and get our silpats and some spoons ready. Jean-Luc was obviously testing our remembering skills because he kept giving us multi-step instructions all at once. We did a pretty good job of each remembering enough snippets of what he told us to be able to put it all together. Once the decoration syrup was done, Jean-Luc showed us how to make these cool sugar nest things that were way easier than any sugar decoration that we've made. The entire group gravitated toward making these though, but there was still a bunch of stuff we had to do to prepare for the lunch rush.
So a couple of us started doing that, which included pouring the various sauces (coulis, anglaise, caramel) into squeeze bottles, making some whipped cream, cutting some fruit, getting plates, and so on. Then Jean-Luc showed us how to plate each dessert. I really liked the plating he did this time, especially the ones for the chocolate pate. We used these awesome chocolate butterflies that the decoration group made today and they just looked beautiful on the plates. I didn't do much of the plating because there were a few too many of us in the service kitchen and not enough room to move around in there. So I cleaned up our workstation with another group member while a lot of the plating was happening. I did do a few apple strudels toward the end, which was great, because the dark chocolate and raspberry coulis on the chocolate pate plates were a little beyond my abilities.
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| White and dark chocolate pate in the decorative chocolate cup; butterfly made by decoration group resting on rosette of whipped cream; assortment of fresh fruit; dark chocolate and raspberry coulis in front |
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| Warm apple strudel on top of anglaise and caramel sauce; decorative sugar nest stabilized by whipped cream; dredged with icing sugar; imagine a scoop of caramel ice cream beside the strudel in front of the sugar nest (it wasn't there in time for the picture) |
The best part of today was when a group of women who had just eaten at the restaurant walked by talking about how delicious all of the food was, especially the dessert. I asked one of them which dessert she had, and she'd ordered the chocolate pate and she loved it. Another woman asked if we had cooked the food, and we said, "No, just the dessert." And I think she replied, "Oh, it was right some good! I have diabetes, but I had to have one of those apple strudels..." It was nice to see people react so positively to the stuff that WE HAD MADE! Pretty cool. And a perfect end to the day.
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Today's Recipes
Chocolate Pate
Apple Strudel
Caramel Ice Cream
Caramel Sauce
Raspberry Coulis
Anglaise Sauce
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